One person’s weed might be another person’s treasure
These pandemic days when I am tired of staring at the walls indoors I go outside and stare at the flowers. At least when it isn’t ridiculously hot outside.
Sometimes I pull a few weeds if I see them.
I’m not sure why I bother except it is against city ordinances to have tall weeds and they are unsightly sometimes. Of course, some of the most prolific weeds are the ones that grow between the curb and the street. I hate having to weed the street.
Some weeds bloom beautifully but they are so persistent that if not pulled, they will take over everything. Every year there are a few I have to let bloom to even realize they are weeds.
Of course, a weed to one person can be a flower for someone else. One of my wife’s great aunts used to say that if something, no matter how nice, was growing where she didn’t want it, then it was a weed.
On the other hand, her sister, my wife’s grandma, would let things like red bud trees grow too tall in her lush flower gardens and then get me to dig them up and transplant them because she didn’t like to destroy nice plants.
Sometimes I have to wonder if careful planning is any better than happenstance in my yard. Some of my flowers are doing well this summer thanks to abundant rain and some careful weeding. But one of the nicer flowers is a petunia which is growing out of a brick sidewalk on the side of the house.
I have to admire that kind of pluck. I have had some annuals reseed themselves and grow another year. There is one yellow flower, I forget its name, which I planted some 20 plus years ago thinking it looked nice. Well, the more it grew, the worse it looked so I vowed not to replace it.
The next summer its seeds sprouted up all over the yard. Heck, I still am pulling starts from that plant.
I constantly chase down and pull wild violets. I have some kind of a vine that pops up all over the place and will choke out everything if left alone.
The joys of maple seedlings, red bud sprouts
Every year the maple tree just outside my fence throws off millions of seeds and a good number sprout. Every spring my gutters have a crop of maple seedlings which thrive until there are a few days without rain and then they die. Eventually I clean them out.
I also dig some of the red bud sprouts from my own tree because it seems like such a waste to just pull them.
Anyway, it gives me something to do. And there is a lesson there with weeds. I don’t know, though, it that lesson is never give up or stick your head up too high and someone will chop it off.
